1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to data processing systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to the management and control of the memory system within a data processing system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is desirable that data processing systems should operate as quickly as possible to meet the increasing demands for processing capability placed upon them. In this regard, there is continual progress in producing processing systems that operate at higher speeds and so are able to execute more instructions per second. As the processors increase in speed, it is important that other systems of the data processing system should also increase in speed if they are not to become a processing bottleneck holding back the overall performance of the system. An example of such an other system is the memory system associated with a data processing system.
A memory system of a high performance data processing system may comprise a hierarchy of levels of data storage, e.g. an internal on-chip cache, an external off-chip cache, a random access memory and a non-volatile memory, such as a hard drive or flash ROM. Schemes which can increase the overall performance of the memory system of a data processing system are highly advantageous.